Tag: sky

Creating you own reality is an especially appealing idea to me right now, especially when so many realities around us are a carcophany of screenshots I much prefer to deleate. So here is a sample of my alternate universe!

Here’s a close up of one of my screenshots with my book “Fantasy Animals.”

What Binge readers my stuffed animals are! And this is what happens if you let them read “Fantasy Animals” without adult supervision. Why don’t you check it out here? www.amazon.com/dp/B01LYJAGLK. These guys, up all night, acting out the parts.

Jump on in. Find an alternate universe in the world of imagination and parable!
And for another alternate universe try shopping on my new website HERE. You never know what the world of imagination can bring you!

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Dawn Smith’s Spanish class and my Visual Art class joined together for a week long unit on creating paintings influenced by Mexican Alebrijes this week at Western Hills High School in Frankfort, Kentucky. Painting and creative writing combined together for a learning experience in Social Studies, Spanish and Fashion Design.

To learn Global challenges of how to resolve conflicts, students had to work in groups and combine at least 2 animals from 2 different continents. They had to paint the animals, list their conflicts, how the animals could resolve those conflicts and capture these conflict resolutions in their choice of creative writing from poetry to dialogue to narrative writing. The writing portion was inspired by the book “Fantasy Animals” by Janis Kirstein, where a South American anteater and African lion are joined together and have to learn how to get along. This book was inspired by Mexican Alebrijes from Mexico, created with bright floral patterns in the 1930’s of conglomerations of various animals all in one being.

This Painting was inspired by Mexican Alebrijes, by Janis Kirstein in Mercedes Harn’s art class this summer. This class was for a teacher Inservice given by The Academy with the Kentucky Center for the Arts, combining the teaching of Social Studies, Visual Art and Spanish Language.

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Lollipop

“I’ve always been a big fan of contrast. Light against dark, sharp against soft, gruesome against adorable. This is a contrast of the latter.

I’m also proud to say this was the winner for the Redbubble Monster Challenge! Thanks so all of you who voted for this image!!!!

And so here we have our vibrant little girl running and skipping, pulling her new friend along. Where did she find him? Why hasn’t he not eaten her yet? And why is she not afraid?? Is SHE the monster???? All of this is up in the air for you to decide:)

Created in photoshop, mostly hand painted and photo textures added here and there. I love doing art that raises questions and creeps people out a little, so thanks so much for looking! ” Alex Ruiz

About Alex Ruiz

The visions of Alex Ruiz range from dark and disturbing, all the way to vomit inducing cuteness and hilarity. In his paintings, the creatures of his thoughts crawl off the page and transplant themselves into the unsuspecting brain, hopefully taking residence there as well. Born in the Cuevas Negras( the Black Caves) of Hermosillo, Mexico, Alex began engraving murals on the cavern walls, and soon after, the walls of family and friends’ baby nurseries. To this day, he continues to explore the roads and depths of the heart and mind, especially the odd and strange ones, and bury the findings within his art. Alex is now a freelance concept artist/illustrator living in Los Angeles, California, lending his talents to the film, television, and video games industries.

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Starry Night

“I’ve often wondered about how the night sky looked to Van Gogh when he painted ‘Starry Night.’

This is an homage to him, and to his painting, one of my all time favorites. We see him standing here, looking up at the night sky…probably in awe, as he wondered how he would capture the beauty he saw. As well, this was the view from the sanitarium he was staying at, as it’s well known that the poor guy was quite mentally troubled.

I wanted this piece to be somewhat magical and fantastic, not just a normal night painting. Hence the large moon, large stars, transparent clouds etc., yet keeping a mostly realistic feel to it.

If you see the original painting, you see so much motion…it’s as if he saw the vibration on all the objects, as if he wanted to capture the wind!

Thanks for looking, and I hope you enjoy looking at it as much as I enjoyed creating it:) Done in Photoshop in about 7 hrs using matte painting techniques.

Post Apocalyptic Disneyland

” I understand some people will get upset with this image. Let me first say though, I absolutely LOVE Disneyland! What I’m really trying to covey here is a contrast of ideas. I don’t want this to happen in reality, but it COULD. Look where we live, floating on a rock in space and being shot at by other rocks!: So let’s hope and pray a meteor doesn’t hit us, ad let’s not take images like this too seriously.
“It was a blast making this image, I actually went to Disneyland to take reference photos for it and to make sure I was placing things correctly. Done in Photoshop in about three days.

Drawings and Studies by Alex

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Other Amazing Art Works by Alex

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I am so thrilled to feature the fantastic art of Alex Ruiz. Truly, I would say he is the Mary Shelley, (author of “Frankenstein”) of the Visual Art World! And so I challenge you Alex: Take this photo of Mary Shelley and superimpose your face and/or any character you have invented on to this image of Mary!! Janis Kirstein

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About Diana Mulder

Diana, born and raised in a New Jersey suburb in the shadow of New York City, is a modern day renaissance woman. She studied Illustration, Graphic Design and Fine Art at Parsons School of Design in NYC. She started her artistic career with a Southern California commercial design company, eventually forming her own architectural design firm where she worked for many years. In addition, she continued to pursue her passion in the fine arts.

Depending on the day, you might find her preparing architectural designs for a client, working on a textural painting, or toiling on a new project in her art studio where she spends most of her time these days. Her passion for the fine arts finds it way into everything she does and her attention to detail is obvious in her professional as well as personal projects.

Diana enjoys using many different materials in her work such as reclaimed wood, industrial and textural pieces, old books and zinc metal. She is passionate in her goal of creating that which will inspire her clients, students, and friends alike. This passion has been a life-long pursuit and her greatest joy is sharing it with others whether professionally or just for fun.

Throughout her career, she continued to paint with watercolor and would get requests for dog portraits on a regular basis. She also exhibited at the Watercolor Society of San Diego gallery and the Good Earth Coffee Shop. She is also a member of the National Watercolor Society.

After many years painting with watercolor, she decided to let herself explore as an artist, and found a love for other mediums like acrylic and oil along with plaster, papers and texture.

Diana creates dog portraits with remarkable empathy for her subjects. She manages not only to convey the dog, but the spirit and personality of each dog.

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Abstract Landscapes

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Diana painting a seascape.

In this closeup of the landscape painting, you can see the wonderful textures found in her work through the use of paint and plaster.

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Diana’s paintings of birds and bird eggs.

Abstract and graphic, you can see the variety of textures from the use of multi media.

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About the Artist

Colorado Artist Joan Fullerton

Evocative Landscapes Real and Imagined

“Born into a Wyoming ranch family, I grew up with a deep regard for the natural world. For me the subtle nuances as well as the awesome power of nature’s beauty, made the solitude of the isolated prairie sacred. While raising 3 children, I studied watercolor with Edgar Whitney, Frank Webb, Charles Reid and other nationally known watercolorists. In 1985 I returned to college and achieved BFA and MFA degrees in painting from the University of Wyoming. I was a college art instructor from 1990 to 2003 in Cheyenne, WY. And in 2003 I fulfilled a long-time dream when I moved to Taos, NM, to paint full-time. After 8 successful years in Taos, I am now in the Denver, CO area, painting and teaching workshops.”

This is a video about Joan’s artistic process. She tells how she works, what materials she uses, and how she builds her ideas, images and layers.

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Joan’s collages and paintings are a combination of abstraction and landscape. It is hard for me to choose which subject matter and style of hers I prefer. The abstract collages show a depth of color, a strong sense of proportion, balance and contrast, as well as a great palate of visual markings.

Her abstract landscapes incorporate tree images as a design element. The tree brances emerge from the abstract layers of paint, moving in delicate, subtle nuances of line and form. Her color palate tends to neutral with touches of dark areas, and flashes of brilliant red, oranges and turquoise.

Her reverence for nature is obvious in her fine rendering of the landscape. Her paint washes combine with dark tree brances to capture a strong sense of space and place in each of her landscape images.

Written by Janis Kirstein

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The necessity to create is an obvious driving passion immediately visible when seeing Gray Artus’ work for the first time. His paintings and photographs reveal a deep urgency to express profound feelings and evoke hidden longings. Each piece, whether a photograph of a North Carolina beach after dusk, or a painted bird at rest in its natural habitat, conveys the mystery of the intangible behind the visible.

Artus Grey is a largely self-taught artist currently living in Asheville, North Carolina. His ability to capture human emotion through passages of stark contrast and subtle texture overlays carries his pieces from the obvious subject and beyond, into a deeper dream state, where one feels the reality of the vision with an incessant ache.

ARTIST STATEMENT BY ARTUS GRAY

I lost myself so long ago… I chased plastic dreams I thought would bring happiness. Where did the time go? I lost myself in this world and at times I lost my mind… When I paint I find it again and my thoughts are so clear. I paint to have freedom… Freedom from this world of falling short of others expectations… Freedom from the anxiety that oppressed me and formed me into a soul that was unrecognizable.

I am a photographer to see… see the beauty in this world. There are days it’s hard to find but I see it… it’s there in a sunrise or maybe in a smile. I am a photographer to see… see the loneliness in the world. It’s never hard to find… A teardrop falls silently to the earth. I am an artist because there are no words to express how I feel. I am an artist created to be free…my soul soars… it’s the way God created me.

BIO I am Gray Artus a painter, photographer and fine artist from Asheville, North Carolina. This is just my self diagnosis but I must have ADD. I jump from photography to painting then to a different painting and back again. Its an endless circle of creativity here!

Art is what I think about when I get up in the morning and when I go to bed at night and all day in between… its my passion!

Artus’ work is currently displayed nationally and internationally in private collections and has been used as album art and on various regional websites.

You can view his work at Fineartamerica.com at the link at the top of the page.

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